Monday, February 19, 2007

Racism in Cincinnati

Well, we've been here now since August and my husband and I agree that this is pretty much the most racist place we've ever seen.The racism is so obvious in people, it's sad.

A man I casually chatted with the other day while our children were playing on the same playground exhibited some prime racist statements; he was telling me about "how much better" the city of Indianapolis is for families (WTF! there's NOTHING in Indianapolis! ..Except of course, lots of WHITE people!), and about "how safe" it is there (meaning; lots of white people)and how there is so much more to do downtown Indianapolis than there is downtown Cincinnati for families (nevermind all of the great Christmas festivities on Fountain Square! They don't count because there are black people present I guess).

He then proceeded to tell me that whatever I do, not to live in the city limits of Cincinnati; that there is conflict between the police and City Council, that there aren't enough police officers to fight crime there appropriately, etc. and so forth, and that I'll definitley be better off living in a suburb or in "any town in Northern Kentucky" because each city has it's own police force, own EMT's, own fire squads, etc. (of and there are only white people!) .

He also made some sort of comment about how entitled blacks think they are and that whenever "they" have a problem "they" automatically blame it on the fact they are in fact black and are being discriminated against.

I quickly got myself away from this jerk.

My husband says that the white folks at his place of employement always refer to whomever it is they are referring to not just by his or her name, but they preface their statement with "you know that black (guy/gal) named ______...." WTF? What does the somebody's skin colour or ethnic background have to do with how you identify them? Seriously, something wicked this way comes!

But it gets even more severe. There was a patient who needed to be released. She had nothing but the clothes on her back, seeing as she was admitted as an emergent case in a fire. No house keys, no car etc. Her one relative could not come to pick her up that night, but could do so the following morning. So the social worker was going to release her anyways and send her to the homeless shelter for the night! Outlandish! Luckily for the patient, another staff member intervened, pointing out the fact that this woman was not homeless, she had a home she just didn't have transportation until the morning. 100% chance if this patient had been white the social worker would NEVER have thought to send her to the homeless shelter for the night! But she was black...when probed as to why on earth this would be an appropriate decision, the social worker replied that she "does this all of the time," .

Whoa!I wasn't here for the riots 5 years ago, but apparenlty that set off a serious case of "white flight" from the city limits. Apparenlty now Cincinnati has the lowest home ownership rate of any city in the country (yikes! I hope we don't become another Flint in 10 more years!), and the crime rate per 100,000 people has consistently gone up every year since the riots. The total number of murders is also on the rise, from 40 in the year 2000 up to 79 total murders in 2005.

Luckily for us, the city has set up a lot of programs to help people become homeowners. Let's pray that this year goes well for us, becoming homeowners in the City where Pigs Fly!